So, I had envisioned writing a blog post every week of my time in business school, but then classes started. I either had forgotten how little time I had in college or this is significantly more time intensive. Between 4 classes, the study group meetings, club meetings/events, and preparing for recruiting/soul searching, it's really hard to keep up.
This is what my calendar looks like every week. Yikes!
I had all of these fabulous ideas for hard-hitting blog posts, like women in business, which was spurred by all of those articles about HBS going around and this article that was posted on Jezebel (I still can't tell whether this is supposed to be satire or not...).
Instead, I spent approximately 10 hours working on a problem set for my microeconomics class, which I love and hate at the same time. My professor won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant and is a really engaging lecturer, however his problem sets and exams are on a different level and have very little to do with what we actually learn in class. We haven't gotten our first problem set back, but I'm legitimately worried that I might fail this class despite having been an econ major in college. However, everything in school is graded on a curve, so I just need to get more questions right than 50% of my classmates and I'll be golden.
This article in TRN Magazine pretty much sums up what I've learned in the first 6 weeks of being on Campus:
- It is not a golden ticket -- I still have so much I need to do on my own to make sure I get the most out of my 2 years here and position myself for the best possible career. I'm not going to magically become a design thinking guru or a partner at a venture capital firm without doing some work to get experience on the side.
- Loved ones will become calendar entries -- Oh god. I have to schedule google hangout sessions with people I used to speak with daily or at least several times a week. This makes me so sad because I promised myself I would be better at keeping in touch.
- You are your biggest cheerleader -- It's easy to think that I don't belong here with all of these other impressive people. In order to get what you want, you have to be your own biggest advocate. No one will do this for you (although there are lots of people and resources who will help along the way).
- It's ok to not know what to do -- The overarching theme of conversations during admit weekend and orientation was "I wrote my essays about [this], but I might want to do... (insert x, y, z possible careers)." While some people are dead set on investment banking or management consulting, the rest of us are figuring it out one step at a time, and that's totally normal. I have plans A, B, and C (and now D as of a very exciting lunchtime conversation - news for another post).
- It's worth it -- I'm having so much fun! For as much stress and lack of sleep I'm enduring, I'm so happy I gave up a steady paycheck at a job I didn't completely hate to do this for 2 years. The people are amazing, I have so much more clarity on what I want to do with my life, I'm dating a ton (which I never did while I was working, thanks 5-day-a-week travel schedule), and I'm loving exploring a new city!
In other news, I can't wait for next weekend. Farbz is coming to visit Chicago for the first time ever! I'm so excited to play tour guide (and tourist) and celebrate Halloween (both of us failed at planning ahead for costumes last year, so this year we're going all out. My royal blue tutu has already arrived in the mail!). Unfortunately the weather switch flipped this week and it's now trending towards winter with highs in the 40s. We'll be doing some bundled up wandering in Millennium Park.
I'll leave you with a video and a question. If you haven't seen this yet, it's probably the funniest thing I've seen since I got to school. I've heard the Fox is going to be one of the most popular Halloween costumes this year...
Do you like to go to bars where there's a live band? How do you decide where to go and how do you find out if a band will be playing when you want to go?
I'll try to leave the b-school bubble and report back more often in the future...
Love,
The Chicagtonian
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